Jabbie the Tailor

Anthony Joseph

Jabbie was a tailor from Sierra Leone, whose gradual and tragic descent from master craftsman to unemployed alcoholic I witnessed, and attempt to record here. There are many like Jabbie, who fall into the abyss of the city. But this is hindsight. When I started writing, about a year ago, it was simply an attempt to capture the cool, enigmatic essence of the man. It took shape gradually; as the sketching of a portrait. Firstly, some of its rhythm and melodic form was captured, and over subsequent months and drafts, expanded. Then the words had to be wrestled into form and sequence. The poem is an attempt to capture the vibration of Jabbie; an impossible task, of transcribing life, and one only approachable by transcending the limits of the page. I believe the poem has to have a tangible reality, a substance, texture, a muscle in the air/ear, like sculpture, a vibration conjured by the alchemy of words. I have tried to avoid abstracted or figurative sentimentality, while still giving pure evidence of my friend Jabbie, as he staggered through Rye Lane, and as he grew dark and grimmer each time, until he disappeared into the streets.